


Trigger Man

by Jaune_Chat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Control, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Past Mind Control, Self-Hatred, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:58:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5697589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/pseuds/Jaune_Chat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HYDRA had left plenty of old controls in the Winter Soldier.  When Steve accidentally activates one, the Asset takes control with a mission in mind that leaves no room for what Steve and Bucky had been trying to build between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trigger Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BrighteyedJill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Brighteyed Jill!

Steve threw his head back and laughed as Bucky flopped down on the couch next to him. “No, really, I need to draw that for Sam’s birthday,” he protested. “I don’t care how if Tony pitches a fit, that’s going up as a giant picture on the wall of the media room.”

“The _Iron Angel?_ ” Bucky said, grinning at Sam’s casual quip that the Iron Man suit would look better with wings, which had then ended up in a bragging-cum-flying contest with Sam edging Tony out by a hair. Tony had been protesting it two hours later as eloquently and snarkily as he could, right through a briefing, more training, and dinner. Sam had been given back as good as he’d gotten, and by the end, Natasha had just gotten a large bowl of popcorn for her, Wanda, Steve, Bucky, and Vision to share as they’d watched the best verbal tennis match since the last time Natasha and Clint had gotten into a swearing contest (in six different languages).

“Definitely. That’s more than worthy of being immortalized,” Steve said. He turned and leaned over to the end table, grabbing the sketch pad and pencil there. With a few fluid movements, he had captured the essence of Sam’s form, wings up in an angelic pose, Tony tumbling just behind his wake, incredulous shock visible in every line of him.

“Father MacGregor would kick your ass,” Bucky said, laughing. Steve put the sketch pad aside and put an arm around Bucky’s shoulders.

“Naw, I know you’d protect my ass any day.” He squeezed Bucky’s right shoulder and grinned. “You’ve got my back. You’re my secret weapon.”

As the last syllable left Steve’s lips, it was too late. A moment of blankness fogged Bucky’s mind, and he knew something terrible was coming.

No one ever thought it would be easy to bring Bucky into the Avengers. Steve had been under no illusions as to how badly his best friend had been damaged, not after having to fight for his life against him in the streets of D.C., not after having to beat him and dislocate his arm to keep him from fulfilling HYDRA’s goals, not after Bucky had saved him, and then ran for months out of confusion and fear. Bucky had been under even less illusions. Half-fried brain or not, he knew HYDRA had sunk a lot of resources into him, his body, prosthetics, and training. And they were not eager to lose the Asset to anything, from unexpected twinges of his old personality to loyalties outside of his handlers. Like a trapped fortress, or a computer program, they’d built backdoors and pitfalls into him. Ruthlessly, Bucky had been rooting them out with whatever help he could get. But they could crop up at any time, from any sort of trigger, and he didn’t always know he’d stumbled over a tripwire in his own mind until that hated moment of blankness would undo everything he’d been trying to regain.

There had been a few times in training when he’d found himself with his weapon trained on Steve’s back or Natasha’s head, sighting to take them out because of a barked command that had also once been pounded into him by some HYDRA commander. He’d switched sides during a take-down of rogue STRIKE members when someone remembered to display the HYDRA emblem and cuff him upside the head in the right way. And he’d gone pliant and limp during a knock-down, drag-out grappling battle with a rogue Inhuman because she’d uttered some shut-down phrase in just the right tone, purely by accident.

Each time he’d gone to Vision afterwards, to have the trigger cleared from his mind. Vision had burned Ultron out of the Internet when he’d been a day old, resetting a few bad files in Bucky’s mind was easy with the power of the Mind Stone behind Vision’s compassionate direction. But he couldn’t exactly search for triggers himself; he didn’t know what was good or bad in Bucky’s mind. _Bucky_ didn’t even know, so how could he expect anyone else to? He couldn’t quit. He damn sure wasn’t going to give up on Steve, not after everything.

Steve and the rest of the Avengers had learned to work around Bucky’s trapped head, learning those quietly, deadly moments of silence, those blank stares and dilated eyes that heralded some override code surfacing from the black ocean of his past like a shark out of dark waters.

This time it was so much worse. A crushing, boiling, sexual _need_ swamped him, focus and purpose narrowed to the single goal of quenching the smirk on man beside him, of hearing protests turn to screams, to whimpers, to whines, until every vestige of resistance had been forced out of him, until he would do anything, answer anything. Only then would the fire stop.

Oh. Oh _God_. A memory surfaced as the trigger gripped him in its thrall. Stripped naked, paraded before prisoners, drugs pumped into him as someone told him, “Every part of you is a weapon to serve HYDRA.” Over and over and over again, ruthless, relentless, until he could do nothing but believe, but obey, for his body to prime and ready itself to serve HYDRA as not just a weapon, but as a breaker of will.

A distant part of Bucky’s mind was letting out a long, unbroken scream as the Asset flipped Steve over, grinding his face into the carpet. The Asset leaned in, shoving down against Steve’s strength, loosing his metal arm to drive near-crippling strikes at several precise points over Steve’s shoulder, spine, side, and hip, enough to get him limp for a moment. That moment was all he needed to open his own pants, then force his arm up against Steve’s head, putting the back of his skull in an implacable metal grip, and kick Steve’s knees apart so his vulnerable ass was right up against the Asset’s painfully-hard dick. 

Steve was talking, and the Asset didn’t particularly care what he said at this unbroken stage, but Bucky could understand. He was saying, “FRIDAY, don’t call the others, seal the room, don’t let anyone in here, seal the recordings-” and spitting out his access code as quickly as he could. Bucky’s heart sank as he realized no help would be coming, even as the Asset tore Steve’s sweatpants and underwear away so that he was unshielded. Vulnerable. Bucky could feel the Asset’s pulse jump, the hard twitch of his cock as he anticipated the next phase of his assignment.

He used his right hand to guide his erection to press against Steve’s hole, just holding the pressure there with ominous intent.

“Will you answer the questions?” he growled, the metal fingers of his left hand pressing hard into Steve’s skull in warning. Bucky could see Steve’s back rise, his lungs inflating to answer, but then felt the Asset tense and suddenly ram his dick into Steve’s bowels before he could get a word out. It was like shoving his penis through hot sandstone, Steve’s strength and the friction of going in totally dry nearly as painful for the Asset as it had to have been for Steve. Steve went rigid with pain, the air he’d sucked into to answer being forced out of him in a cry of agony. Inside, Bucky begged Steve to be quiet, because the cry of pain sent a bolt of triumph and satisfaction through the Asset.

With brutal rhythm, the Asset thrust over and over, keeping Steve’s head down as he rocked him into the carpet. Red smears from abraded skin on Steve’s forehead, arms, and knees began to show, and the Asset remembered (Bucky remembered too, was forced to remember) smears against concrete floors in hidden, black-ops bunkers. How many times, he didn’t know. It hadn’t been important for him to know. Methodically, the Asset twisted his hips to find new ways to keep Steve gasping, even screaming, the friction against his cock only easing when a deeply brutal thrust made the way slick with blood. The Asset used his cock like a weapon, like a knife, stabbing and slashing until Steve went limp under his hand.

He was viciously hard still as he felt the blood around his cock, and Steve went completely still and pliant, panting into the carpet, shaking beneath his strength. The Asset pulled out, standing, and he could see blood staining the crown of his cock, smeared along the length. The sight was unbearably stimulating, and words grated out of the Asset’s mouth in a growl with a heavy hint of Russia behind it. “Look at me!”

Steve turned, face wet with sweat, tears, spit, and blanched and reddened in quick succession as he saw the evidence of the ruin of his own body on the Asset’s prick. Deliberately, the Asset reached down and stroked himself with his right hand as his left reached down and dragged Steve up by the hair with his left, Steve’s face lined with pain. 

“Tell me all you know,” the Asset said, hand reddening with Steve’s blood as he readied himself for another round, if needed. This would go on for as long as necessary to get the required reaction. Release was his reward for a job well done, and not a moment before.

Steve’s mouth gaped, and then his eyes dropped, proud and broken, breathing harsh and trembling. “I… I’ll tell you,” he whispered. “Anything. Please…”

A half-dozen strokes, and the Asset was rewarded, pleasure of obedience cresting through him as he marked the subject with spurts of semen mixed with the prisoner’s own blood. Tears cut through the red and white stripes, mixing with the growing blue of bruises, and the Asset allowed himself a smile as his success.

Bucky dove for the driver’s seat as the Asset faded into his blank complacency, and it was his hands who suddenly let go of Steve’s hair and gently took his shoulders to lie him down. It was his voice, his own New York voice, not the Asset’s muddled mix of accents and necessary languages, who began to beg for forgiveness with the fervency of any former alter-boy. “Steve, Steve, God, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…” Steve just let Bucky lay him down, wipe away the semen and blood from his face, breathing and shaking his head. Anger seared over the yawning chasm of guilt.

“You fucking idiot, why didn’t you call the others? Why did you let me do that to you, _why?_ ” Bucky demanded, not shaking Steve until his teeth rattled because the idea of touching Steve with violence was so anathema right now that he was about ready to vomit.

Steve blinked, seeming to come back to himself, and reached up a hand, the fingers swollen and bloody from being held down and rubbed raw against the carpet, to touch Bucky’s face with unwanted gentleness. It felt like a branding iron against Bucky’s skin, but he held still for it. This was the least of his punishments. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” Steve said. His voice sounded stronger than it should have, and Steve was moving more easily than he should have been able to. “Bucky, we’ve done it before,” he added gently. Not the sex, that had been far up in the air for a later time, but they’d had to fake Steve’s death twice before to get the Asset’s trigger to reset. It had been faster and less painful to have let it play out than to try to have prevented the Asset from fulfilling a mission.

Bucky gagged and managed to hold onto his stomach contents by a thin margin. Mission. He’d had a mission to break prisoners; to rape them into submission. And Steve had… He’d _let_ the Asset…

“Why do I have to remember that?” Bucky said, and he knew it was a cruel thing for both of them. Steve had let himself live through it, had acted more broken than he was to placate the Asset, but Bucky… Bucky had to remember doing that and not being able to _stop_.

From the stricken look on Steve’s face, Bucky realized he hadn’t told Steve how much he remembered when the Asset took over, how much he struggled against his own body and the decades of abuse and training that had been forced on him. How much he was forced to watch as the monster he’d been (still was) betrayed the people he loved. His heart, already in his stomach, sank deep into his shoes.

“Bucky…” Steve whispered, and winced a little as he tried to sit up. Bucky could see fresh blood staining the ruin of Steve’s sweatpants, and felt himself blanche. “No, no, I’ll be okay.” He gripped Bucky’s right arm firmly and tried to look like he believed himself.

Bucky almost let himself go along with it. “I can’t. Steve, I can’t keep doing this. Not when you-.”

“I could have stopped you,” Steve interrupted, keeping his grip on Bucky’s arm. “Bucky, you had me surprised for half a second, and in that time, I could have fought back.”

Bucky knew how that would have ended up, though. Both of them barely functional, aching and in pain because of how long they had would have had to beat on each other to get them down, far worse, physically, than how they were right now. But then _that_ wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t have raped his best friend. He’d have taken a broken arm, a broken leg, a gouged-out eye, anything other than the terrible knowledge that he’d…

“I’m _all right,_ ” Steve insisted, not letting go, not pushing Bucky away, his hand firm on Bucky’s arm. “I’ll heal. I’ll be fine.”

“This is not _all right,_ ” Bucky said, keeping himself from screaming in Steve’s face by a narrow margin. “This is not some God-damned training accident, this is not something that just _happens_ and you have to _deal with it._ Jesus Christ, Steve.” There was a sob lurking in the back of Bucky’s throat, a real sneaky bastard, because Bucky hadn’t realized it was there before it had pounced on him. He fought against it, but his voice still came out too thick, too broken. “I can’t let you take this for me.”

Steve’s face went hard, and Bucky knew he touched a nerve. Good. He opened himself up for the blow, needing to rub some salt in the wound in his heart.

“Would you rather Natasha have ‘taken it?’ Or Wanda? Sam? Tony? Clint? God help us, Bruce? Bucky, what would have happened then?”

They both knew. Someone would have likely ended up dead. Bucky stayed tense for another minute, then went limp, folding over in Steve’s grasp, still trying to give him whatever fragments of comfort he’d accept.

“Why?” Bucky asked, not of Steve, even though he’d answer anyway. “Why’d they do that?”

“Because they were evil sons of bitches and they had to brainwash you and drug you to make you do that because you, Bucky Barnes, would _never_ have done that on your own.”

Bucky clung to Steve in his desperation of _please let it be true_ , and that was so, so wrong, because Steve was the one still bleeding onto his own clothes, and they were both going to be paying for that for a long, long time to come. 

“FRIDAY, release the room lock and surveillance blackout,” Steve said quietly, giving his code.

“And call Vision,” Bucky added. He pulled back a little, reclaiming his spine, swallowing the sob that had threatened him. With shaking hands, he pulled himself to his feet and found more clothes for Steve. Enough for him to make an attempt at respectability. It was too soon, Bucky knew, for Steve to think about flinching away from him. That would come tomorrow.

Then they waited together for Vision to arrive, to take one more bullet out of HYDRA’s weapon. 

Bucky desperately hoped the clip would be empty soon. Otherwise he was certain one day, one of them was going to turn on itself. He just hoped Steve wouldn’t be in the line of fire when that trigger was pulled.


End file.
